Kwantlen president orders inquiry into allegations executives received questionable bonuses

Kwantlen Polytechnic University president Alan Davis says he is ‘very troubled by aspects of administration compensation at KPU that have recently come to light.’Photo by

The president of Kwantlen Polytechnic University has ordered an internal review of the school’s executive compensation practices in light of fresh evidence suggesting other senior executives at the university were awarded contract bonuses that may have violated provincial regulations.

Dr. Alan Davis, KPU’s president and vice-chancellor, said in a statement issued Wednesday that the probe will look into the “pre-employment” consulting contracts offered to senior staff at the school before his arrival to determine if they were in line with government disclosure requirements.

The results and recommendations will be shared with the KPU board and potentially with the public “later this summer,” Davis wrote.

“I am very troubled by aspects of administration compensation at KPU that have recently come to light,” Davis wrote in a statement issued after The Province inquired about two additional contracts.

“It is clear that, prior to my arrival at KPU, there was an established pattern of issuing pre-employment consulting contracts to people being hired to senior positions. The recipients, including myself, were unaware that these contracts might be non-compliant in some way with B.C. public sector regulations.

“I am therefore conducting my own review of these issues, using independent external resources as required.”

The probe’s launch comes on the heels of a scathing government report released last week that found the university twice violated provincial disclosure rules when it failed to report two $50,000 “pre-employment contracts” it awarded to two senior executives, one of them being Davis.

The report, authored by assistant deputy minister Rob Mingay, also concluded that Kwantlen’s board of directors, who at the time included Amrik Virk, the current minister of advanced education, was aware of the details of one of those contracts. At the time, Virk, a former Mountie, was a volunteer member of Kwantlen’s board of governors, a post he took in 2008, and chair of the human resources committee from 2009 until 2013.

The Kwantlen probe also comes amid new disclosures, not mentioned in the Mingay report, that show two other senior staffers were offered $20,000 pre-employment consulting contracts, which were handled in similar manner to the ones detailed in the government report.

Virk declined comment on the new disclosures, but a ministry official said the HR committee Virk sat on dealt only with compensation issues relating to the president.

According to the offer letters of employment sent to Dr. Elizabeth Worobec and George Verghese, dated 2012 and 2011, respectively, by then-president John McKendry, both were offered $20,000 “consulting” contracts to be fulfilled before their actual start dates. Worobec’s job offer was for dean of science and horticulture, while Verghese’s was for dean for the faculty of design. Both were to be paid $122,800 a year.

The letters, provided to The Province, are referenced in a package sent by New Democrat MLA David Eby, his party’s advanced education critic, to B.C. Auditor General Russ Jones as part of the Opposition’s ongoing efforts to encourage the office to open a full-blown audit of the school’s executive compensation practices.

On Wednesday, Eby renewed his call for the minister to step aside.

“A major part of the minister’s job is to hold universities accountable — and yet now the minister and his fellow board members are under investigation by the university,” Eby said. “This backwards outcome isn’t just an indication of the depth of the conflict of interest being faced by Mr. Virk in his current role, it is an indictment of the premier’s decision to keep Mr. Virk in a position where his continuing poor conduct now threatens public confidence in a very important and well-respected B.C. university.”

Details or any mention of the the pre-employment contracts, however, were not included in the employment agreements both Worobec and Verghese eventually signed, a discrepancy shared with both of the other contracts reviewed in the Mingay report. Eby says this suggests the university was trying bypass disclosure rules by hiding key pieces of remuneration.

Worobec’s pre-consulting work focused on preparing the budget for her office and working on transition plans, while Verghese’s work focused on developing a strategic plan and “positioning of the faculty,” a KPU spokeswoman said.

The spokeswoman said in a statement that the pre-employment contracts were reported in the university’s statement of financial information. Total compensation for both Worobec and Verghese did not exceed the amounts specified for there respective positions, according to the spokeswoman.

The finance ministry said the university would not have been required to disclose the contracts because executive compensation disclosure requirements apply only to the top five executive officers in charge of “the management of the corporation, company, organization or agency.”

The ongoing saga around executive compensation practices at Kwantlen Polytechnic University is tied to a wrongful dismissal claim filed in March by a former KPU employee alleging “irregular and wasteful spending” and deliberate attempts to reclassify salary increases to avoid detection. Within days, the Opposition was hammering the government in the legislature about payments to senior KPU executives hidden as payments to suppliers. In response, Finance Minister Mike de Jong ordered an investigation, to be performed by deputy minister Rob Mingay. The findings, released last week, found KPU twice violated disclosure rules, something de Jong called “troubling.” NDP critic David Eby claims there is more that needs to be investigated. B.C.’s auditor general is considering whether or not it to launch a full audit of KPU.

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